Spinning disk helps train athlete's weak points

Athleticism doesn't just come from the weight room. And it's not
always enhanced by cardio class, as Donna Snow learned one day
while struggling to play a recreational football game with
the agility and speed she expected of herself.

That day in the late '80s gave Snow the inspiration for an
exercise device she would create nearly two decades later: a
platform with a spinning disk, called Standing Firm, that
encourages a full rotation workout. Nowadays, its benefit is
becoming increasingly valued by MLB, NBA and NFL teams as they look
to correct muscle imbalances in their athletes.

Snow, a certified personal trainer through the National Academy
of Sports Medicine who based Standing Firm in Pittsburgh,
introduced the current model in 2007. (The popular Bowflex system
giving her the idea for 360-degree movement with resistance.) She
used her experiences playing recreational sports to evaluate how
she could move with improved fluidity and flexibility.

"I didn't feel like I was in the great shape that you feel like
you're in after you finish a traditional cardio class," Snow told
Wired.

What Snow created Standing Firm to do is to train muscles that
aren't ordinarily used. Its rotational forces pull the body in a
full circle of motion. Gripping the height-adjustable handle bars
keep the user aligned, but it's the activation of underused muscle
fibers to maintain balance that Snow said makes Standing Firm
unique.

The device is intended for single-leg use, which Snow said is
important since most athletic movement is performed one leg at a
time: walking, running and, at times, jumping.

The rotational training, Snow said, "puts that [muscle]
contraction in the center of the muscle." This occurs first in the
body's rotation before it takes on resistance, known as the
pre-load stage. Once the body begins fighting the resistance, the
sensory information in each muscle, located toward its center,
encourages contraction of weaker muscles.

Gavin MacMillan, the founder of Sports Science
Lab in San Juan Capistrano, California, and a user of
Standing Firm in his complex for more than a year, explained to
Wired how the body's three muscle fibres -- slow twitch, fast
twitch A and fast twitch B -- turn on during that process. When a
muscle is stimulated by resistance, the nervous system sends a
neuron to a motor unit to which it connects. (A motor unit contains
a group of muscle fibres, which all contract when the unit is
activated.) Those motor units tell the muscle to fire.

This creates a way for athletes to correct muscle imbalance by
strengthening what's weak. "It's going deeper [into the muscle]
than any free weight would do," Snow said.

The NBA's Phoenix Suns, a team famous for reviving and
sustaining the careers of older players, from Shaquille
O'Neal to Grant
Hill, began using Standing Firm toward the end of the 2010-11
regular season. Their head athletic trainer, Aaron
Nelson, noted he and his staff operate it as part of their
daily preventative, corrective and rehabilitative programs.

"We have done exercises with both players and our sports
medicine staff and have seen an immediate response," Nelson told
Wired by email. "You can feel specific muscles being challenged and
working hard."

While emphasising the uniqueness of the device's rotational
component, Nelson added that the three bands providing different
levels of resistance make exercises legitimately difficult for his
players.

The NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, MLB's Milwaukee Brewers and
several collegiate athletic programs, including Duquesne University
and Robert Morris University, also incorporate Standing Firm.

The Standing Firm system, which costs $600 (£375) for a personal
model with a 12-inch disk and $2,000 (£1250) for a professional
model with 18-inch disk, also serves a role in injury prevention,
as Nelson alluded to in explaining his team's use.

MacMillian emphasised that weight room injuries are
unfortunately too common, for both recreational and professional
athletes. "Nobody says anything about it, but that's the reality of
it," MacMillan said.

MacMillan said that weight room exercises tighten the hip
capsule, an area from which most athletic movements are derived. To
be able to stretch and strengthen the hip capsule with various
ranges of motion and resistance is difficult, but it's something
Standing Firm accomplishes, according to MacMillan.

Snow has her sights on introducing the device to the NFL, NHL
and professional golfers. She also wants to take the device to
fitness gyms, which she hopes to make happen during the first half
of 2012. College and pro athletes are the focus for now, and as
more athletes on that level use Standing Firm, as well as other
nontraditional forms of training, they're finding that the weight
room isn't the basis for generating athleticism that it was once
considered to be.